Falcons used “force plate” assessment on Clowney

Posted by Mike Florio on April 25, 2014, 2:05 PM EDT

On Friday, the Falcons assessed South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney via a tool known as a “force plate.”

The plate, pictured with Clowney on it and Falcons director player of personnel Lionel Vital in the background, makes various measurements based merely on a player jumping and moving on it. The test occurred in a weight room, not on a practice field. It doesn’t amount to a “drill” of any kind, but it provides important information about a player’s athletic abilities.

The Falcons have partnered with Sparta Sports Science to develop a full-blown athletic performance program based on the “force plate” technology.

“We feel that partnering with Dr. Phil Wagner and Sparta Software, Corporation will enhance our athletic performance program and benefit our football team,” Falcons G.M. Thomas Dimitroff said in a statement released to PFT. “We are always looking for ways to take our training program to the next level and Sparta will help us develop detailed individual workout programs. We understand the importance of having our players reach their full potential and remain in top physical condition during a long and arduous season, and this partnership will assist us in becoming a highly effective sports performance model.”

For draft purposes, the force plate assessment will help the Falcons identify players whose body composition and dynamics suggest that they will be able to play NFL football at a high level for an extended prior of time.

The results of Clowney’s force plate assessment aren’t known, and surely won’t be shared. But if the Falcons make a move to trade up for Clowney, it will be safe to assume they liked what they saw.

That’s all anyone is going to see of Clowney until he’s on a team. The force plate assessment was the limited activity to which agent Bus Cook recently referred when talking about the things Clowney will and won’t do before the draft.

Being a sc resident, & seeing Clowney play many games, it’s safe to say he is an athletic freak, & a rare human specimen…he absolutely deserves to be the 1st overall pick. If not, the team at that spot on draft day will regret it!

As if Dimitroff’s name and Funky Hair style were not enough…now this mysterious Force Plate…it’s Official …the guy is Kook Koo for Coco Puffs…Ray Charles could have seen that CLOWNEY is a Player…give it a rest!!!

So if the force plate results are good, why wouldn’t the Clowney camp mention that to everybody included with all of his other selling points? Get all the top points in order and list them for every team so they don’t make a mistake in passing on you. And not every team is going to do a lot of research, so that’s the agent’s job to market that which he has to offer.

In a related story, the Falcons sold the force plate shortly thereafter, stating “we have no need to utilize this with our current roster, as we already know none of them are capable of playing at a high level for extended periods of time.”

They must be trading up bc a force plate is used to find out how to fix orthopedic problems. Clowney has suffered from Bone Spurs his whole career in football. They must be going all in on him bc that is a tool to fix his foot problems which only a team wanting him would do.

During the Rorschach Test, Clowney made a swim move on the observer, spun off the table and put a helmet to the chest of the guy holding the cards, causing him to fumble the whole deck, which Clowney recovered and took in for a score. Though impressive, a false start on Dimitroff nullified the play and the table was moved back five yards and the test started again.

If the falcons do anything other than taking the best offensive tackle in the draft, the GM should be immediately fired. Their Oline is horrible, and the falcons suffer a lack of depth because of trading multiple picks for Julio Jones. Another move like that to get Clowney would set this team back.